Global Gov

1
From international to global

governance: Actors, collective
decision-making, and the United
Nations in the world of the twenty-
first century
Tanja Brühl and Volker Rittberger
The central challenge we face today is to ensure that globalization becomes a

positive force for all the world’s people, instead of leaving billions of them
behind in squalor
Kofi Annan 2000: 6
Introduction: Why discuss global governance?
Secretary-General Kofi Annan identifies in his millennium report to

the United Nations some of the pressing challenges that the world’s
peoples face and that fall within the UN ambit. He proposes new initia-
tives (such as a disaster-response initiative or a health internetwork) and
enumerates priorities that people should address (such as to halve, by 2015,
the proportion of the world’s people with an income of less than one
dollar a day). Kofi Annan states that ‘‘all these proposals are set in the
context of globalization, which is transforming the world as we enter the
twenty-first century’’ (Annan 2000: 6).
The Secretary-General is not alone in referring to globalization as a
challenge to, and driving force for change of, existing international gov-
ernance systems. It is widely accepted that globalization not only alters
the relationship between governments and market forces but also has
important implications for the identities and activities of transnational
social actors (Lynch 1998). Thus, instead of states only, a triad of actors
1
2 BRÜHL AND RITTBERGER
comprising (1) states and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), (2)

market forces and (3) civil society actors play important roles in existing
international and evolving global governance.
International governance is the output of a non-hierarchical network
of interlocking international (mostly, but not exclusively, governmental)
institutions which regulate the behaviour of states and other interna-
tional actors in different issue areas of world politics (Rittberger 2000:
198). Global governance is the output of a non-hierarchical network of
international and transnational institutions: not only IGOs and interna-
tional regimes but also transnational regimes are regulating actors’ be-
haviour. In contrast to international governance, global governance is
characterized by the decreased salience of states and the increased in-
volvement of non-state actors in norm- and rule-setting processes and
compliance monitoring. In addition, global governance is equated with
multilevel governance, meaning that governance takes place not only at
the national and the international level (such as in international gover-
nance) but also at the subnational, regional, and local levels. Whereas, in
international governance, the addressees and the makers of norms and
rules are states and other intergovernmental institutions, non-state actors
(in addition to states and intergovernmental institutions) are both the
addressees and the makers of norms and rules in global governance.
International governance, which has grown in the past 150 years, par-
ticularly after the Second World War, is confronted by three different
challenges leading to governance gaps with which international gover-
nance systems cannot cope adequately and which, arguably, prompt a
move toward global governance. First, the technological revolution, es-
pecially in information and communication technologies, not only has
been a precondition of globalization but also enables, inter alia, citizens
and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to enter the stage of world
politics. Owing to this technological revolution (especially the Internet),
these new actors can gather and process information more easily and
rapidly and are able to formulate more timely and persuasive political ap-
praisals. In addition, the Internet is helpful in distributing individuals’ and
non-state actors’ statements instantaneously and inexpensively around
the world.
Second (and most important), globalization has altered the relation-
ships within the triad of actors. In order to govern effectively (i.e. to fulfil
the several tasks of governance [see below]) it is necessary, first, to en-
sure a well-balanced relationship within the triad of actors and, second,
to make it possible for these actors to participate in governance pro-
cesses adequately and equitably.
Furthermore, globalization, which has accelerated since the 1990s, has
given rise to heated arguments about the distribution of gains and losses
FROM INTERNATIONAL TO GLOBAL GOVERNANCE 3
resulting from it. Today, most observers agree that there is no basis for
an over-optimistic assessment of the impact of globalization. Instead of
a steady increase and a fair distribution of wealth, we notice an ever-
widening gap between rich and poor people in industrialized and devel-
oping countries alike (UNDP 1999). Reducing, or even closing, this gap
by working toward a more equitable balance between shareholders and
stakeholders in the world economy (and the national economies) is one
of the formidable tasks of governance at the national, international, and
global levels.
The third challenge to international governance has been the end of
the cold war as a historical turning point that has enlarged the scope of
action of all actors in the triad mentioned above. For example, global in-
stitutions such as the UN system have no longer been blocked by the
vetoes of one or both of the two superpowers. International organiza-
tions of the UN system, such as the World Trade Organization, have
been given expanded jurisdiction and are tested in their capabilities by
their own success. In a similar vein, the remarkable growth of peace-
keeping operations in the 1990s has exacerbated the UN budgetary pre-
dicament. Finally, the emergence of ‘‘new wars’’ (Kaldor 1999) and the
spread of ‘‘old wars’’ make it more difficult for the United Nations to
fulfil its task of maintaining peace.
Although these three challenges (technological revolution, globaliza-
tion, and the end of the cold war) differ considerably in character, they
are all contributing to, first, the emergence of new problems or gover-
nance tasks, such as regulating the uses of the Internet and ensuring se-
curity of information; in addition, existing governance tasks, such as the
new quality of intrastate conflicts or the increasing disparities within and
among nations, have become more pressing. Second, new actors have
entered the world stage as a result of these three challenges. This hetero-
geneous set of new actors includes, inter alia, transnational corporations
(TNCs) and business associations, as well as transnational social move-
ment organizations (TSMOs) (Smith, Chattfield, and Pagnucco 1997),
transnational advocacy networks (cf. Keck and Sikkink 1998), and other
coalitions of NGOs capable of running transnational political campaigns
(cf. Boli and Thomas 1999).
Existing international governance systems fail to respond to these new
problems and to deal adequately with the new actors’ aspirations. There-
fore, demands for more effective and responsive governance systems have
arisen. International governance is reacting to this need by transforming
itself (cf. Commission on Global Governance 1995; Messner and Nus-
cheler 1996, 1997). In order to design more effective and responsive gov-
ernance systems, it is an important task for both policy makers and
scholars to analyse the ongoing transformation of governance and, as far
as possible, to recommend what governance on a global scale could (or,

even, should) look like. This book tries to contribute to these analyses by
addressing several key questions.
The most important question is about the roles that states, IGOs such
as the United Nations, and non-state actors will play in a future world
order. Will they cooperate in global governance systems and, if so, how?
To what extent will states still be able to attain their governance goals,
such as providing security, protection, and social welfare (see Zürn, chap.
2)? Are international institutions at the regional level, such as security
communities, more effective in providing security for the peoples of their
respective regions? If that is the case, how can security communities be
promoted where they do not yet exist (see Peou, chap. 3)? Non-state
actors, such as NGOs or business corporations, seem to be increasingly
important in the evolving global governance systems, both as addressees
of rules and as rule makers. Thus, governing arrangements beyond the
state require adjustments such that global governance resting on the
triad of actors (states and IGOs; market forces; civil society actors) can
substitute for international governance. To what extent can IGOs influ-
ence or even regulate these non-state actors, especially the activities of
market forces (see Higgott, chap. 4)? How do NGOs interact with, or
even participate in, the policy-making process of intergovernmental in-
stitutions (see Tussie and Riggirozzi, chap. 5)? In addition to studying
these specific questions, some more general considerations are in order.
How can global governance best be organized in order to improve on the
attainment of governance goals? Is a democratic world republic the best
model of global governance (see Höffe, chap. 6)? Last but not least, how
can social justice be attained or furthered by a transition from interna-
tional governance systems to global governance (see Tandon, chap. 7)?
In this chapter, we present some general reflections on international as
well as global governance. First, we analyse international governance as
it has taken shape in the past and sketch the three challenges that have
contributed, and are contributing, to its current transformation. There-
after, the deficiencies of international governance are highlighted. Next,
the emergence of global governance at the beginning of the twenty-first
century is analysed and evaluated. In the concluding section, we provide
an overview of the book’s content.
International governance at the end of the twentieth century

Before the structure and the main actors of international governance in
the form in which it has existed up to the end of the twentieth century
are analysed, it is necessary first to clarify the notion of governance.
The term governance refers to purposive systems of rules or normative

orders apart from the regularities (natural orders) emerging from unre-
stricted interactions of self-interested actors in a state of anarchy. This im-
plies that the actors recognize the existence of certain obligations and feel
compelled, for whatever reason, to fulfil them (Mayer, Rittberger, and
Zürn 1993: 393). In other words, ‘‘governance is order plus intentionality’’
(Rosenau 1992: 5). Governance includes the existence of a political pro-
cess which ‘‘involves building consensus, or obtaining the consent or ac-
quiescence necessary to carry out a programme, in an arena where many
different interests are in play’’ (Hewitt de Alcántara 1998: 105).
Governance is sometimes confounded with government, although these
are different concepts. The term government refers to formal institutions
that are part of hierarchical norm- and rule-setting, monitoring of com-
pliance with rules, and rule enforcement. Governments have the power
both to make binding decisions and to enforce them; thus, governments
may allocate values authoritatively (Stoker 1998: 17), although not with-
out limitations in regard to ends and means. In contrast, governance is
more encompassing than government (Rosenau 1992: 4). As ‘‘the capac-
ity to get things done’’ (Czempiel 1992: 250), governance may take dif-
ferent forms: whereas at the state level it is mostly exercised by govern-
ments (governance by governments), above this level it needs to take the
form of governance with (multiple) governments or governance without
governments. The latter is defined as the exclusive regulation of social
behaviour in an issue area by non-state actors, and is based on normative
institutions involving a stable pattern of behaviour of a given number
of actors in recurring situations. So far, governance without governments
does not seem to play a paramount role in world politics, although
the amount of ‘‘private regulations’’ is increasing (Cutler, Haufler, and
Porter 1999). In comparison, governance with (multiple) governments
(or, to be more specific, governance without a world government, but
with national governments and international institutions) is defined as
governance by both states and non-state actors. Although institutions of
hierarchical norm- and rule-setting (governments) are involved in this
form of governance, non-hierarchical norm- and rule-setting is predomi-
nant (Zürn 1998: 169–170).
It has been mentioned that governance is a purposive mechanism that
is steering social systems towards their goals (Rosenau 1999: 296). These
governance goals are neither constant nor exogenously determined, but,
rather, are time and place specific. Governance goals are at the same
time ‘‘normative goods’’ (as they are generally regarded as valuable and
desirable) and ‘‘functional goods’’ (as the non-attainment of one or more
of these objectives may, in the long run, lead to political crisis) (Zürn,
chap. 2). However, there is no consensus on the content of core gov-
ernance goals. In a narrow sense, there are three main goals of govern-
ance, mostly pursued by governments on the state level: these are (1) to
provide the population with physical security, (2) to guarantee the stable
reproduction of their natural environment, and (3) to ensure their live-
lihood, i.e. the production and distribution of needed goods and services.
In a broader and more differentiated sense, core governance goals en-
compass (1) security in its defence function (safeguarding the population
and the territory in question against the risk of war in general) and its
protective function (safeguarding individuals against the risk of crime
and the destruction of the environment). Furthermore, governance is
expected to provide (2) legal certainty (rule of law) and (3) channels of
participation and to produce a symbolic system of reference and the
communicative infrastructure within which a sense of collective civil
society can develop. Finally, a goal of governance is (4) to correct in-
equalities that result from markets (Zürn, chap. 2).
As long as national governments were able to attain these core govern-
ance goals independently (‘‘governance by governments’’), the need for
international governance was not pressing (Rittberger 2000: 192). Owing
to several factors, however, the ability as well as the willingness of the
separate states to pursue these governance goals on their own has con-
stantly decreased. The experience of the economic depression of the
1930s, of the Second World War and the cold war, as well as the decol-
onization of the third world, have enhanced the states’ readiness or
capability to cooperate and have thus strengthened the demand for in-
ternational governance. In addition, international interdependence has
intensified as a result of the extending exchanges and transactions among
individuals and collective actors. Therefore, individual states, more often
than not, cannot handle the problems arising from interdependence (or,
to be more precise, from the costly effects of these interactions and trans-
actions) independently (Keohane and Nye 1977, 1987). As a result of
interdependence (and of constraints on autonomous decision-making
resulting from interdependence sensitivity and vulnerability), the need
for political regulations ‘‘beyond the nation-state’’ has increased dramat-
ically (Mayer, Rittberger, and Zürn 1993: 393). This has prompted the
states to consider the option of pooling or delegating sovereignty more
frequently. Sovereignty is pooled when governmental decisions are made
by common voting procedures other than unanimity; sovereignty is dele-
gated when supranational organs are permitted to take certain decisions
autonomously, without an intervening interstate vote or unilateral veto
(Moravcsik 1998: 67). Delegating sovereignty rarely takes place in world
politics, because most states do not readily accept an authority above
themselves. Thus, delegating sovereignty may be observed more often in
regional integration schemes, such as the European Union (EU). Here,
the European Commission enjoys the right of initiative in most areas

of legislation coming under the jurisdiction of the EU, and to a more
limited extent in external trade and accession negotiations. In world pol-
itics, the establishment of international courts, such as the International
Court of Justice or the future International Criminal Court, are a result
of delegating sovereignty. In contrast, pooling sovereignty is more fre-
quent, as, for instance, in the main UN organs including even the Secu-
rity Council, where decisions are taken by common voting procedures
other than unanimity.
In general, the demand for international cooperation and international
governance has increased during the last decades. Since the 1950s, and
even more so since the 1970s, this demand has contributed to the estab-
lishment of international institutions in general and of IGOs and inter-
national regimes in particular (see Rittberger 1995: 72; Beisheim et al.
1999: 325–353). In addition, already existing international institutions
have constantly gained higher attention and importance. These IGOs and
international regimes have become part and parcel of the international
system (‘‘regulated anarchy,’’ cf. Rittberger and Zürn 1990) and have
constrained the states’ behaviour. Although most international institu-
tions have been predominantly intergovernmental, governments still have
played an outstanding role in international governance. In comparison to
‘‘governance by governments’’ at the state level, however, international
governance is less backed by formal authority, since most international
institutions do not have strong monitoring, let alone enforcement mech-
anisms.
The following section highlights the challenges to international gover-
nance more closely.
Three challenges to international governance
The technological revolution
Over the last twenty years, a revolution in information and communica-

tion as well as in transportation technologies has taken place. This revo-
lution has at least three different dimensions: first, the capacity of infor-
mation and communication technologies has increased in qualitative as
well as quantitative terms; second, common limitations in space and time
have been progressively overcome, thus dramatically enhancing connec-
tions between peoples and places; third, existing information and com-
munication technologies have been much more effectively connected and
integrated in the last decades, thus stimulating the growing practice of
‘‘computer matching’’ (Frissen 1997: 112–115).
The technological revolution – and, with it, the heightened availabil-

ity of information and communication channels, especially through the
Internet – challenge national governments as well as international gov-
ernance in at least four different ways:
. The progress in information and communication technology increases,
in particular, non-state actors’ ability to influence international politics.
. International negotiations change drastically, owing to the increased
availability of information.
. The concept of citizenship is being transformed following technological
developments contributing to the skill revolution.
. The Internet, being governed (mostly) by private authority, is one of
the new realms of governance without governments.
Reduced transaction costs, as well as a minimized time lag, simplify
communication between different actors around the globe. This enables,
for instance, civil society actors to build up transnational alliances, to for-
mulate joint statements, and to develop joint strategies in regard to issues
of common interest, thus exerting influence on international political pro-
cesses. By opening the public dialogue to citizens all over the world, the
Internet is contributing to the establishment of more egalitarian interna-
tional relations. This democratizing effect in the sense of giving voice to
individual opinions in international processes, however, does not hold for
all citizens, since in some states the openness of the Internet and its public
accessibility is under state control (Shapiro 1999: 24).
At least three examples illustrate the enhanced international political
role of international NGOs [(I)NGOs] arising from the achievements of
the technological revolution. First, the International Campaign to Ban
Landmines (ICBL), launched in October 1992 in New York City, has
been extremely successful in building public awareness and contribut-
ing to the political resolve necessary to bring about a landmine ban (cf.
Cameron, Tomlin, and Lawson 1998). As an outcome of the Ottawa
Process, 122 states signed a treaty banning the use, production, stock-
piling, and transfer of antipersonnel mines. The ICBL, which was
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997, consists of more than 1,200
(I)NGOs in some 60 countries around the world. It united national and
international initiatives to achieve its goal. Since the ICBL operated
without a secretariat, member organizations were free to pursue the
campaign’s goals as it best fitted their respective mandates and resources
(Williams and Goose 1998: 22). Thus, communication among the mem-
ber organizations was highly important. Although two members of the
coordination committee of the ICBL observe that ‘‘a bit of mythology
has developed surrounding the ICBL and its reliance on electronic mail’’
(ibid.), they admit that the use of new media has had a major impact on
the ability of member organizations from diverse cultures to exchange
information and develop integrated political strategies. In particular,

communication with campaigners in developing countries was improved
by electronic mail (e-mail), and it did allow the campaign to share infor-
mation, jointly to develop strategies more effectively, and jointly to plan
major activities and conferences (ibid. 24). Without the technological
revolution, these (I)NGOs could never have worked so closely together.
The second example of effective collaboration of (I)NGOs from all
over the world that is based on using new technologies is the NGO Co-
alition for an International Criminal Court (CICC). This Coalition con-
sists of over 800 (I)NGOs. Its main purpose has been to advocate the es-
tablishment of an effective, just and independent International Criminal
Court (ICC). In order to attain this goal, the Coalition is maintaining
a World Wide Web site and e-mail lists to facilitate the exchange of
(I)NGOs’ and experts’ documentation and information about the ICC
negotiations and the ad hoc War Crimes Tribunals in Arusha and the
Hague between both non-state and state actors. Certainly, the compila-
tion and distribution of reports on governments’ positions concerning
key issues during the ICC negotiations in Rome was among the most ef-
fective actions undertaken by the CICC. Publishing national ‘‘votes’’ and
stances in regard to certain proposals kept the delegations, (I)NGOs, and
the press informed about which positions were supported by the different
countries, and thereby pinpointed where additional lobbying by (I)NGOs
was necessary (Pace and Thieroff 1999: 395).
The third ‘‘success story’’ of (I)NGOs’ activities that influenced world
politics is the ‘‘Anti-MAI campaign’’. More than 600 (I)NGOs in more
than 50 states defeated a Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI)
by the world’s 29 richest states. The talks between the members of the
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in
Paris eventually broke down after the draft agreement had been pub-
lished by the international NGO network and, as a result of adverse pub-
licity, key member states such as France changed their positions and with-
drew from the negotiations (cf. Smythe 2000).
Apart from (I)NGOs, IGOs also profit from these enhanced commu-
nication possibilities. Via the Internet, the public can easily be informed
of their tasks and programmes. Furthermore, both knowledge of, and
compliance with, international norms (such as the protection of human
rights or of the human environment) can be improved considerably, since
civil society actors can refer to these norms and demand their states’ com-
pliance with them (cf. Keck and Sikkink 1998).
At first, one might conclude that the technological revolution moves
the international system in the direction of being more democratic by
providing better access to information and by enhancing communication
flows (cf. Gellner and von Korff 1998). On further appraisal, however,
it appears equally true that the recent technological achievements may

also have some negative effects on access to, and dissemination of, com-
munication. The most important argument against the democratic qual-
ities of contemporary information technology (IT) is, of course, that only
a small (though growing) part of the world’s population has access to and
knowledge of it. Whereas in the OECD countries in 1998 approximately
255 personal computers and 37.86 Internet hosts per 1,000 people ex-
isted, there were only 0.26 Internet hosts per 1,000 people in developing
countries (the number of personal computers was negligible). In com-
parison, the number of personal computers per 1,000 people (12 and 15)
in the Arab states and East Asia was considerable (UNDP 1999: 201). In
January 2000, 72 per cent of all Internet hosts were located in the United
States but only 3 per cent in the developing countries (Afeman 2000:
430). This problem has entered UN discussion under the heading of the
‘‘digital divide.’’ In his millennium report, Secretary-General Kofi Annan
observes that the problem arises for various reasons: these include lack
of resources and skills, inadequate basic infrastructure, illiteracy and lack
of language training, and concerns about privacy and content (Annan
2000: 34). Thus, he announced two ‘‘bridges over the digital divide’’: the
first is the Health InterNetwork for developing countries, which will es-
tablish and operate 10,000 on-line sites in hospitals and public health
facilities throughout the developing countries in order to provide access
to up-to-date health and medical information; second, the United Nations
Information Technology Service (UNITeS) will train groups of people in
developing countries in the use of IT. Although both initiatives certainly
are a step in the right direction, they will probably not be able positively to
bridge the ‘‘digital divide.’’
The second aspect of the challenge to international governance deriv-
ing from the technological revolution refers to international negotiations
which, as a result of the heightened availability of information, have un-
dergone profound changes. As is generally assumed, even important and
far-reaching decisions often have to be made through a haze of uncer-
tainty (Young 1994: 101–102). These informational gaps not only impair
adequate assessment of the problem given but also make it difficult to
find an acceptable – let alone optimal – solution. Additional information,
of course, reduces this uncertainty. On the other hand, new and supple-
mentary information may complicate a situation even further, as the
number of possible arguments in favour of, or against, a policy increases
and the spectrum of outcomes widens. Thus, the surplus of information
may foster the decision makers’ uncertainty with regard to their indi-
vidual preferences instead of allaying it, and negotiations may become
prolonged rather than eased and curtailed. Some authors suggest that
the pace of technological progress not only influences the time-frame of
international negotiations but also has even outstripped governments’

ability to structure political processes and make use of the new technol-
ogies (Reinicke and Deng 2000: 2).
The third aspect of this challenge to international governance is on a
‘‘micro-level’’: the technological revolution is contributing to a transfor-
mation of citizenship due to the skill revolution. Skill revolution means
that people have become ‘‘increasingly more competent in assessing
where they fit in international affairs and how their behavior can be
aggregated into significant collective outcomes’’ (Rosenau 1997: 58–59).
The effects of the skill revolution are not necessarily positive in terms of
leading to the evolution of globally shared values or a less self-centred
and more humane mankind; on the contrary, the skill revolution also
leads ‘‘to more selfish conduct, in which the welfare of larger systems is
ignored’’ (Rosenau 1995: 4). It has both widened and narrowed people’s
consciousness and thus has altered the concept of citizenship. ‘‘In some
parts of the world people have raised their sights above the nation-state
and shifted their responsiveness to authority ‘upward’ to transnational or
supranational entities; others have shifted in a ‘downward’ direction and
become responsive to their subgroups . . .’’ (Rosenau 1995: 4).
Another, fourth, aspect of the challenge to international governance
posed by the technological revolution is provided by the Internet as a
realm largely governed by private authority. In the late 1980s, the US
Department of Defense and the US National Science Foundation began
to privatize the Internet. Originally designed for the exchange of military
data, the Internet was mostly used by university researchers, government
scientists, and outside computer engineers before the late 1980s. Ever
since, commercial interest in the Internet has constantly been growing.
Although, initially, it was used mainly by private business to offer infra-
structural services, it was soon conquered by commercial providers who
offered Internet access to a large group of private and commercial users
(Spar 1999: 34). Though anarchy in the Internet probably has to be tol-
erated to a certain extent, many users demand a stricter regulation of
conduct. Their arguments for a higher degree of control in the Internet
are (a) that serious business has to be based on a set of fundamental
rules (i.e. reliability and predictability), and (b) that the amount of in-
formation with ‘‘objectionable content’’1 (i.e. pornographic, violent, blas-
phemous, dissident, or hate-mongering) should be reduced drastically.
Thus, a new governance task, namely to regulate the uses of the Internet
and to assure security and safety of the information infrastructure, has
arisen (Florini 2000: 21).
So far, international governance has failed to establish these rules.
The initiative of regulating the Internet could be taken by separate na-
tional governments according to their own legislative traditions and spe-
cific national interests, if the uses of the Internet could be confined to

national territories. This, however, is not entirely feasible, owing to the
Internet’s decentralized technical structure. Neither would international
organizations be capable of governing the Internet, since the processes of
reaching agreements and making decisions on an international level run
much too slowly to match the rapid-fire rate of technological change
(Spar 1999: 47). Thus, the private sector has been prompted to develop
the rules for regulating its conduct all by itself. An example of this self-
coordination of private actors is the Internet Corporation for Assigned
Names and Numbers (ICANN), the technical coordination body for the
Internet. Created in October 1998 by a broad coalition of the Internet’s
business, technical, and academic user communities, ICANN has assumed
responsibility for a set of tasks, such as coordinating the assignment of
Internet domain names and protocol parameters. ICANN is an example
for the establishment of private authority (Cutler, Haufler, and Porter
1999), where non-governmental entities tilt the delicate balance between
the private sector and government closer to the side of the former (Spar
1999: 32).
To sum up, the technological revolution has had both positive and
negative consequences. On the one hand, the Internet in particular con-
tributes to strengthening democratizing trends by enabling citizens and
civil society actors around the world to participate in public dialogues.
On the other hand, the Internet facilitates the dissemination of objec-
tionable information and may also be utilized by criminal and terrorist
organizations. Because of the decentralized structure of the Internet,
both traditional methods of exercising jurisdictional authority (by na-
tional governments and international governance) and alternative models
of cooperation among international information disseminators are faced
with the risk of failure in regulating the use (and the content) of the
global information flows (Hurley and Mayer-Schönberger 2000). In ad-
dition, the technological revolution increases the capacity of non-state
actors relative to states to take part in international political processes,
thus creating a much larger number of players in the international system
(Florini 2000: 21).
Globalization
Globalization has become a ‘‘fashionable concept’’ (Hirst and Thompson

1996: 1), although there is neither a consensus definition nor a common
understanding of the sources and consequences of globalization (Beis-
heim and Walter 1997: 153). Thus, Richard Higgott asserts that global-
ization is ‘‘the most over-used and under-specified concept since the end
of the Cold War’’ (see Higgott, chap. 4 as well as Devetak and Higgott
1999: 483).
In general, there are two major ways of defining the concept of glob-
alization.2 In a narrow sense, globalization denotes a continuous process
of increasing cross-border economic flows, both ‘‘financial and real,’’3
which are conducive to greater economic interdependence among for-
merly distinct national economies (Reinicke 1998: 6). It can thus be
defined more precisely as the ‘‘tendency towards international economic
integration, liberalization and financial deregulation beyond the sover-
eignty of the territorial state’’ (Higgott, chap. 4). In this context, global-
ization is interchangeable with economic interdependence. This implies
that globalization is not an entirely new phenomenon, for economic in-
terdependence among states has been observed as a characteristic of the
international system since the beginning of the 1970s (and may date even
further back, as some authors claim, e.g. Hirst and Thompson 1996).4 As
interstate and transnational interactions and exchange relationships have
accelerated since the 1970s and 1980s, interdependence has deepened.
In its broader sense, the term globalization is not restricted to the
mechanisms of cross-border economic transactions. Instead, it means
the extension of cross-border societal exchanges and transactions (Zürn
1995: 141)5 in a wide range of non-economic areas such as communi-
cation and culture (interaction of signs and symbols), mobility (trans-
boundary movement of persons), security (exchange of, or jointly pro-
duced, threats), and environment (exchange of pollutants and the joint
production of environmental risks) (Beisheim et al. 1999; Walter, Dreher,
and Beisheim 1997; Zürn 1998: 73–95) as well. Globalization thus de-
notes the ‘‘widening, deepening and speeding up of worldwide intercon-
nectedness in all types of contemporary social life, from the cultural to
the criminal, the financial to the spiritual’’ (Held et al. 1999a: 2). It is not
restricted to the economic realm, but includes a general accumulation of
links across the world’s major regions and across many domains of social
activity (Held et al. 1999b: 483). In that broader sense, globalization has
a historical dimension (Keohane and Nye 2000a). Probably the oldest
form of globalization is environmental: ‘‘[C]limate change has affected
the ebb and flow of human populations for millions of years’’ (Keohane
and Nye 2000b: 3). Globalization in a military context dates from the
times of Alexander the Great’s expeditions of 2,300 years ago (ibid.: 4).
These different dimensions of globalization have appeared and disap-
peared again over the centuries. These historical manifestations of glob-
alization can be characterized as ‘‘thin’’ globalization. For example, the
Silk Road provided an economic and cultural link between ancient Eur-
ope and Asia, but the road was plied by a small group of traders and the
goods primarily had a direct impact on a small group of consumers along
the road only (ibid.: 7). In comparison, today’s globalization is ‘‘thick,’’

being more both intensive and extensive.
As mentioned above, theoretical approaches to globalization differ
widely and there is no consensus yet whether globalization is indeed a
global or rather a regional or interregional phenomenon. Whereas some
scholars suggest that globalization mostly, though not exclusively, takes
place among the OECD countries (see e.g. Zürn, chap. 2), others claim
that it has a worldwide effect. Robert Cox, for example, observes that
globalization ‘‘implies a progressive integration of all people into the
world economy . . . [and] implies, in consequence, an increasing homo-
genisation of global culture, with the development of common patterns
of consumption and common aspirations as to the nature of the ‘good
life’ ’’ (Cox 1997: xxii).
It is important to note that globalization, in all cases mentioned, has
emerged not accidentally but as the result of political strategies of the
world’s leading states, aiming at the ‘‘neo-liberal’’ goal of establishing an
advantageous political–economic order on both the national and the
global level (cf. Higgott, chap. 4). Deregulation, economic liberalization,
and privatization are preconditions of globalization that have been im-
plemented first in the United States (‘‘Reaganomics’’) and Great Britain
(‘‘Thatcherism’’) (cf. Altvater and Mahnkopf 1996; Scherrer 1999). Thus,
the shift from state intervention to market self-rule, the so-called ‘‘retreat
of the state,’’ has been in large part the consequence of governmental
policies in leading OECD countries (Strange 1996: 44). Apart from the
national governments mentioned above, intergovernmental organiza-
tions, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World
Bank, have for some time played a major role in supporting globalization
since their work has been determined by the same principles, namely de-
regulation, liberalization, and privatization (see Higgott, chap. 4 for the
Washington Consensus).
Globalization depends on commonly accepted norms and rules that
ensure competition, such as ‘‘rules of property,’’ ‘‘rules of exchange,’’
and ‘‘rules of enforcement’’ (Spar 1999: 32). More generally speaking,
the market as an institution is dependent on a set of external (i.e. non-
market) institutions such as property rights or public mass education in
order to function effectively and efficiently. Without non-market mecha-
nisms to coordinate collective action, these public goods tend to be un-
derproduced. Therefore, it is important for the functioning of market
economies that the provision of these public goods is ensured (Kaul,
Grunberg, and Stern 1999a: xx). Some specialized agencies of the United
Nations (such as the World Trade Organization [WTO] or the World
Intellectual Property Organization [WIPO]) contribute to the establish-
ment and protection of this kind of stable (commercial) order by provid-
ing, maintaining, and usefully extending the ‘‘soft infrastructure’’ (Zacher

1999: 6). In general, however, the output of international norms and reg-
ulations to ensure the provision of these public goods on a global scale
has not kept pace with the rising demand for them (Väyrynen 1999).
Globalization challenges international governance systems in at least
three ways. First, it tends to contribute to a widening of the gap between
rich and poor, which indicates that international governance systems fail
to attain one of the primary goals of governance, i.e. to provide for social
welfare. Second, owing to deregulation, economic liberalization, and pri-
vatization, transboundary market forces (most importantly, TNCs) are
increasingly participating in international affairs. As a consequence, the
balance within the triad of inter- and transnational actors has changed
and needs to be (re-)adjusted. Third, civil society actors react to this fail-
ure of international governance and to the changed balance within the
triad by forming alliances and protesting against this development and
other unwelcome effects of globalization (cf. Nye 2000).
Social welfare on the global level has become an increasingly impor-
tant governance task in the era of globalization. At first glance, this state-
ment may surprise, as it has been widely believed that globalization would
open up new opportunities and increase the welfare of all peoples. Some
analysts point out that free trade has contributed to improving the world
economic situation in the last decades (e.g. WTO 2000). The per capita
incomes, for instance, have more than tripled as global gross domestic
product (GDP) increased nine times in the past 50 years; the share of
people enjoying ‘‘medium human development’’ had risen from 55 per
cent in 1975 to 66 per cent in 1997 (UNDP 1998: 25). At the same time,
however, the gap between poor and rich, both worldwide and within
states, has not narrowed but has widened: the top fifth part of the world
population in the richest states capture 82 per cent of the expanding ex-
ports and 68 per cent of foreign direct investment; the bottom fifth capture
hardly more than 1 per cent (UNDP 1998: 31). The difference between
the incomes of the richest and poorest states has grown from 35:1 in 1950
to 71:1 in 1992 (UNDP 1999: 6). Formulating and implementing appro-
priate policy responses to contain these gaps seems to be imperative, es-
pecially because citizens of states generally referred to as ‘‘winners of
globalization’’ also suffer from its negative effects. In the United States
and the United Kingdom, the inequality of income distribution, meas-
ured by the Gini coefficient,6 has risen by a rate of more than 16 per
cent from the 1980s to the early 1990s (UNDP 1999: 6; cf. also Tandon,
chap. 8; Stewart and Berry 1999). Countering the negative effects of glob-
alization by appropriate public policy, and thus preventing global social
disparities from progressing even further, seems to be one of the foremost
tasks of governance. Nevertheless, existing international governance sys-
tems have not been able to redistribute wealth or to provide compensa-

tory mechanisms that underwrite social cohesion (Devetak and Higgott
1999: 488).
The second aspect of the challenge to international governance sys-
tems resulting from globalization is the altered relationship between busi-
ness actors and states (cf. Higgott and Phillips 2000). Owing to dereg-
ulation, economic liberalization, and privatization on both the national
and the international level, not only the number of TNCs but also their
influence in world politics has risen. Today, TNCs control financial capi-
tal, technology, employment, and natural resources to an unprecedented
extent. Their transnational production has grown in scale, scope, and in-
tensity (Cutler, Haufler, and Porter 1999: 14). TNCs use their power re-
sources in world politics both by trying to influence governmental and
intergovernmental policy-making and by cooperating with other market
actors: private actors are increasingly involved in authoritative decision-
making that was previously the prerogative of national governments or
intergovernmental institutions. For instance, TNCs have displayed a re-
markable prominence in the Uruguay Round negotiations of the GATT.
Besides TNCs’ activities in trade negotiations, they play a prominent role
in environmental and even security issues (ibid.: 16). Additionally, they
have intensified their cooperation with other market competitors. The
result of this ‘‘interfirm cooperation’’ is the establishment of private au-
thority over transnational affairs (ibid.). This ‘‘industry self-regulation’’
seeks to attain four major aims: these are (1) to establish international
standards to increase efficiency in global transactions; (2) to ensure the
security of these transactions; (3) to maintain industry autonomy by pre-
empting or preventing government regulation; and (4) to respond to
societal demands and expectations of appropriate corporate behaviour
(‘‘good corporate citizenship’’) (Haufler 2000: 126). In order to reach
these goals, industries agree to international standard regimes (such as
those initiated and monitored by the International Organization for Stan-
dardization) or to codes of conduct (such as the Responsible Care pro-
gramme) (cf. Haufler 2000).
The protests of civil society groups against the negative effects of
globalization highlight another aspect of this challenge to international
governance. The civil protests have coalesced in an ‘‘antiglobalization
movement’’, a heterogeneous network of (among others) labour unions,
environmentalists, and churches. Lory Wallach, one of the organizers of
the protests in Seattle, summarizes the common ground of the movement
members as follows:
. All of them query ‘‘the democratic deficit in the global economy,’’
which tends to undermine the credibility and legitimacy of interna-
tional (economic) institutions.
. They all ‘‘feel directly damaged by the actual outcomes of the status
quo, albeit in different ways’’ (Wallach 2000: 47).
Protest activities of civil society groups at important international con-
ferences have attracted an unexpected amount of public attention. When
the ‘‘No New Round Turnaround’’ campaign organized the protests at the
WTO meeting in Seattle 1999, neither the city administration nor the po-
lice were in the least prepared for the number of participants. One year
later, in Prague 2000, the officials were already expecting mass demon-
strations to accompany the IMF and World Bank Annual Meeting, and
the UN Millennium Summit in New York City in fall 2000 brought about
protest activities of civil society groups as well. The so-called ‘‘S8 Mobili-
zation campaign’’ demanded a ‘‘truly democratic United Nations’’ and
queried the role of global business in world affairs, especially in the UN
system (Crosette 2000: 4). These joint activities of heterogeneous civil so-
ciety groups have been described as ‘‘globalization-from-below’’ (Falk
1999: 131; cf. Mittelman 2000: 26; Tussie and Riggirozzi, chap. 5).
These three aspects of globalization – the widening gap between poor
and rich and the growing relevance of both market forces and civil soci-
ety actors – profoundly alter the states’ performance in international
governance systems. Nation-states have lost their position as the para-
mount loci of governance, yet they continue to play a significant role in
the evolving global governance (see Zürn, chap. 2; Messner 1998; for a
detailed discussion see also the sections on the limits of international
governance systems and towards global governance, pp. 19–35).
The end of the cold war
The main problems of international politics in the cold war period with
regard to governance systems can be summarized as (1) unstable co-
operation between East and West at best and conflict brinkmanship at
worst, and (2) the dramatically reduced scope of action of most interna-
tional organizations, especially the UN system.
With the end of the cold war, the structure of the international system
began to change. This transformation challenged the international gov-
ernance systems in several ways. Most importantly, bipolarity no longer
limited the international organizations’ scope of action, as a consequence
of which they succeeded in gaining greater salience in world politics. After
the Security Council’s ability to act ceased to be blocked by the antago-
nism of the two superpowers, the way to peaceful conflict management
seemed to be open (cf. Betts 1994). Thus, in the early 1990s, an extra-
ordinary increase in the number of peace-keeping operations can be
observed: whereas the United Nations initiated no more than 15 peace-
keeping operations in the long period between 1945 and 1989, the Secu-
rity Council authorized 18 between 1989 and 1994 alone (Peou chap. 3).7
The intensified action of the Security Council is a result of the re-
definition of what is seen as a threat to peace, breach of peace, or act of
aggression according to Article 39 of the UN Charter, and of a revised
notion of what is considered to be sovereign national activity (Doyle
1998: 4).
This remarkable new trend has caused two major difficulties, however:
first, the deployment of troops acceptable to all conflict parties has be-
come increasingly problematic (Armstrong, Lloyd, and Redmond 1996:
130); second, the apparently endless demand for peace-keeping has
compounded the United Nation’s financial problems. The expenditure
for peace-keeping operations rose from 31.04 per cent of the total budget
in 1990 to 49.92 per cent in 1997. At the same time, the budgetary short-
fall due to unpaid contributions by several member states, above all the
United States, amounted to about US$3 billion in 2000.
In addition to being confronted with these two difficulties, the United
Nations faces novel, grave obstacles to fulfilling its task of maintaining
international peace and security. This results from the fact that the fea-
tures of war have changed drastically in the last decades. Today, most
wars are intrastate instead of interstate (Hippler 1999: 422; cf. also Rohl-
off and Schindler 2000). In the 1980s and 1990s, this new kind of war
evolved especially in Africa, the Balkans, and in the south of the former
Soviet Union (Daase 1999; Kaldor 1999). ‘‘New wars’’ differ from ‘‘old
wars’’ with regard to their goals and the methods of warfare, and in the
way that they are financed. Whereas ‘‘old wars’’ served geopolitical or
ideological goals, most ‘‘new wars’’ are concerned with identity politics
(national, clan, religious, or linguistic identity). New warfare draws on
the experience of both guerrilla warfare and counter-insurgency: the
military units combine different groups with a decentralized organization.
In old, conventional wars, battles were the decisive encounters: here, the
actors were typically vertically organized units. The war economies of
‘‘old wars’’ were centralized and autarchic; in ‘‘new wars,’’ they are de-
centralized and heavily dependent on external resources (Kaldor 1999:
6–8).
So far, the United Nations has failed to prevent (sometimes, even to
mitigate or speedily to terminate) these ‘‘new wars.’’ This is partly due to
the constraints of institutional mechanisms: they were created in order
to deal with ‘‘old wars’’ and are thus less capable of handling this new
kind of armed conflict effectively (cf. Ropers and Debiel 1995). Thus,
it might be helpful to include new actors in conflict-resolution mecha-
nisms. Since ‘‘unofficial actors,’’ such as NGO representatives or citizens’
groups (so-called Track Two diplomacy), nowadays perform a range of
supplemental or parallel functions to the official interstate relations
(Track One diplomacy), they may help to improve relationships between

different actors at various levels and among different individuals and
groups. However, up to now Track One and Track Two diplomacy have
not been coordinated adequately. The United Nations should thus con-
sider establishing such coordinating mechanisms (Rasmussen 1997: 43; cf.
Zartman 1999) or to react otherwise by adapting its institutional struc-
ture to the new characteristics of war.
In addition to this institutional adaptation of the United Nations to the
‘‘new wars,’’ the United Nations should rethink its ‘‘paradigm of inter-
vention.’’ The limited effectiveness of some UN missions, such as those
in Congo, Somalia, and the former Yugoslavia, suggests the need for a
new approach in peace-keeping (cf. Mockaitis 1999). A new ‘‘paradigm
of intervention’’ should take into account, inter alia, the fact that, more
often than not, a consent of the parties is missing (Annan 1998b: 172).
Thus, a consensus as to what the ultimate goals of a mission shall be is
even more important. The United Nations appears to be the agency of
choice for developing and implementing this new ‘‘paradigm of interven-
tion,’’ as it has conducted peace missions of various kinds for the half-
century of its existence (Mockaitis 1999: 138).
Limits of international governance systems
The (non-)attainment of governance goals at the end of the

twentieth century
In the previous sections, three different challenges (technological revolu-

tion, globalization, and the end of the cold war) to international govern-
ance systems have been outlined. Under these altered circumstances,
the effectiveness of the present international governance system, which is
part of governance legitimacy, turns out to be insufficient in at least two
regards.
First, it has been suggested that new governance tasks have arisen –
such as, for instance, the regulation of the Internet. In addition, long-
term problems have grown more pressing. Today’s international govern-
ance systems have not been able adequately to meet these demands on
their policy-making capabilities. This is especially true for ‘‘trans-
sovereign problems’’ (Cusimano 2000), i.e. problems extending across state
borders in an almost uncontrollable way. Examples are environmental
threats, refugee flows, nuclear smuggling, or international criminal activ-
ities. In the last decades, the number and extent of these problems have
clearly risen.
Second, new actors have entered the world stage and other non-
territorial actors, such as international (governmental and non-

governmental) organizations, have multiplied. The examples of the
ICBL, the NGO CICC, and the Anti-MAI campaign show that non-state
actors’ exertion of influence on international politics is facilitated by the
achievements of the technological revolution. Additionally, the influence
of transnational corporations and business associations on world politics
has risen as a result of deregulation, economic liberalization, and privati-
zation.
A critical assessment of the work of international governance systems
clearly demonstrates that they fail to deal adequately with these new
problems and the new actors’ aspirations. Thus, the attainment of gov-
ernance goals by international governance systems, in which states play
a paramount role, seems to be extremely difficult, if not impossible.
1. The defence function of governance (safeguarding a certain popula-
tion and territory against the risk of war) cannot be sufficiently ful-
filled by most states. In many regions of the world, people are suffer-
ing from war. With the number of wars having increased since the end
of the cold war, the number of people affected by war has multiplied
correspondingly (Peou, chap. 3). Furthermore, most states are even
less able to fulfil their protective function adequately (safeguarding
individuals against the risks of crime and destruction of the environ-
ment) as global ‘‘evils’’ (e.g. terrorism, drugs, diseases) cross borders
more easily. The most prominent examples of this type of transna-
tional security problem are terrorist organizations and transnational
criminal organizations (cf. Rittberger, Schrade, and Schwarzer 1999;
Williams and Savona 1996; Williams 1999).
2. The important governance goal of ensuring legal certainty (rule of
law) cannot generally be fulfilled. This is most obviously demon-
strated by states such as Somalia and Sierra Leone. With the number
of ‘‘failed states’’ having increased in the last decades, this governance
goal is even less likely to be met in many regions of the world than
ever before.8
3. Many citizens criticize their limited opportunities to participate in, or
at least to influence, public policy-making as insufficient (see below).
4. Finally, the growing gap between rich and poor, both all over the
world and within individual states, shows that the governance goal of
correcting socio-economic disparities that result from the functioning
of markets also cannot generally be attained.
The continual non-attainment of governance goals by international
governance systems calls for more effective governance systems. As a
consequence of the limitations of international governance systems, ef-
forts to overcome them will orient themselves towards global governance.
In order to develop concepts of more effective and responsive governance
Table 1.1 Limits of international governance systems
Output legitimacy Input legitimacy

Jurisdictional gap Participatory gap
Operational gap
Incentive gap
systems, the causes for the failure of international governance systems to

attain governance goals must be analysed in more detail.
Four governance gaps undermine the governance systems’

legitimacy
The failure of international governance systems to attain their govern-
ance goals, and thus the reduction of their legitimacy, mainly originates
from four governance gaps. As the following section suggests, these four
gaps considerably impair the capacity of international governance sys-
tems to deal with urgent problems (output dimension of legitimacy) and
impede some actors’ opportunities to participate in public policy-making
(input dimension of legitimacy) (table 1.1).
The previous sections have indicated that the attainment of govern-
ance goals by international governance systems has become increasingly
difficult. This is particularly true for transsovereign problems. This lack
of effectiveness has been referred to as the governance systems’ reduced
output legitimacy (Zürn 2000: 184; Scharpf 1998a; cf. also Keohane and
Nye 2000c). In general, output legitimacy is achieved or maintained
whenever ‘‘collectively binding decisions . . . serve the common interest
of the constituency’’ (Scharpf 1998b: 3). Obviously, international govern-
ance systems have not been sufficiently effective in dealing with existing
problems and have thus failed, for the most part, to achieve output legit-
imacy.
Three major governance gaps have contributed to the undermining of
the output legitimacy of international governance systems, as follows.
1. A jurisdictional gap (Kaul, Grunberg, and Stern 1999a: xxvi): Even
though many political challenges are global today, public policy-
making is still predominantly national in both focus and scope. The
most prominent example of this kind of border-crossing or globally
relevant problems are the transsovereign problems already mentioned
above, e.g. environmental degradation. Global threats such as the
greenhouse effect, for example, cannot effectively be countered by
uncoordinated national policies and thus call for a global climate
policy to regulate the behaviour of all states as well as non-state
actors.
2. An operational gap: Policy makers and public institutions lack the

policy-relevant information and analysis as well as the necessary policy
instruments to respond to the daunting complexity of policy issues
(Reinicke and Deng 2000: vii). This is especially true in environmental
politics. Since clear-cut causal chains are rare in this issue area,
decision-making is often impeded by informational uncertainty. Fur-
thermore, the management of current problems is often interrupted by
the advent of even more pressing new ecological problems. To meet
these requirements, a permanent process of learning and adjustment
is necessary (Brühl and Simonis 2000: 8). Therefore, scientific experts
as well as NGOs play an important part in the processes of decision-
making in this issue area by providing scientific analysis, transforming
it into policy-relevant knowledge, and proposing adequate policy re-
sponses.
3. An incentive gap (Kaul, Grunberg, and Stern 1999a: xxvi): Since in-
ternational cooperation has become more salient in international rela-
tions, the implementation of international agreements has become es-
sential. Today, the operational follow-up of international agreements
remains underdeveloped; moral suasion, or shaming, frequently is the
only mechanism available to induce states to comply with interna-
tional obligations (Kaul, Grunberg, and Stern 1999b: 451). This com-
pliance problem makes it difficult for international institutions (as parts
of the existing international governance systems and evolving global
governance) to contribute effectively to the attainment of governance
goals as they continue to depend on the willingness of individual states
to implement international regulations.
In addition to these three governance gaps, which undermine the out-
put legitimacy of international governance systems, a fourth, participa-
tory gap has opened up (Reinicke and Deng 2000: viii; Kaul, Grunberg,
and Stern 1999a: xxvi). As more and more public policies are made by or
within international institutions, the general public or particular stake-
holders are frequently excluded from their deliberations and decisions.
Thus, input legitimacy is reduced as well (cf. Kohler-Koch 1998).9 Input
legitimacy is given when collectively binding decisions derive from the
constituents’ active consent (Scharpf 1998a: 85). Participation and con-
sent thus are essential elements of input legitimacy (Rittberger 2000:
210). The addressees’ acceptance of norms and rules as binding hinges
on their participation in creating and implementing them. According to
Seymour Martin Lipset (1960: 79), effective governance depends both on
the invention of beneficial solutions to pressing social needs and on gen-
eral access to the political process. The subjects’ loyalty can be obtained
only by preserving their right to participate actively in political decision-
making processes. Input legitimacy may be undermined by several fac-
tors: (1) new social forces with the power to revolt against the estab-
lished order are denied access to the political process; or (2) participation
is devalued for recognized actors who still have sufficient power to ham-
per a smooth functioning of the governance system (Rittberger 2000: 210).
In both cases, these actors feel deprived of their part in influencing
rule creation and rule management affecting their interests. Being kept
away from the political process, they tend to ignore the established order
whenever feasible.
From the vantage point of a state-centric approach focusing on the
horizontal self-coordination of sovereign states, input legitimacy of inter-
national governance systems is not likely to be undermined as long as
states remain the dominant actors in world politics (Young 1994: 99–
100). The participation of states’ representatives in institutional bargain-
ing mechanisms is ensured by the fact that these bargaining processes
themselves are structured by a consensus rule. Owing to the principle
of state sovereignty, no state can be bound to certain norms and rules
against its consent; generally acceptable solutions for collective-action
problems thus have to be formulated. The consensus rule for interna-
tional negotiations therefore guarantees mutually acceptable results in
processes of horizontal self-coordination of states, i.e. international gov-
ernance systems (Rittberger 2000: 211).
However, international governance systems have increasingly come
under pressure on both theoretical and practical grounds. The difficulties
derive from at least two basic developments. First, owing to the ever-
expanding and ever-deepening transnational connections, national gov-
ernments are successively losing their monopoly of representing their
societies in international political processes. As suggested in the previous
sections, influential new actors with a growing ability to affect the author-
itative allocation of values have emerged in the global arena. These new
actors challenge the input legitimacy of purely intergovernmental policy-
making (Rittberger 2000: 212). Second, as a result of the growing need
for international or global solutions for formerly national problems, the
subjects of democratic states, having minimal influence on the processes
of collective decision-making on the international level, feel increasingly
alienated from the political process (cf. Scharpf 1993).
The United Nations may serve to underpin this argument. Like other
international institutions, the UN system is state-centric. Even if the gov-
ernments of the member states are elected democratically (and many
of them are not), the input legitimacy of public policy-making within
these institutions is rather low because of the distance between decision
makers and the people affected by these decisions (Bienen, Rittberger,
and Wagner 1998). ‘‘The Peoples of the United Nations,’’ to which the
opening paragraph of the UN Charter refers, have had few, if any prom-
ising avenues open to them for making themselves heard by the UN

policy-making bodies.
Towards global governance
Finding ways to close these governance gaps is one of the most promi-
nent tasks of politicians and political scientists. In this section, we first
present three different models of international or global governance. In
terms of desirability and feasibility, however, only one model remains.
We then outline and discuss some reform proposals and the ongoing
change in global governance, such as the opening of the UN system to-
wards non-state actors. To conclude this section, we ask whether these
changes are contributing to more effective and legitimate global gover-
nance.
Three models of global governance
With the end of the cold war as a historical turning point that had trig-
gered a moment of euphoria (Young 1997: 273), a discussion about the
future structure(s) of world politics has begun. In the first years after
the end of bipolarity, the discussion centred on the question of whether
the world would be structured in a uni-, tri-, or multipolar way. Since
then the main emphasis of the discussion has changed, and more general
questions are being asked, such as what effective global governance
looks like and, in particular, whether hierarchical or non-hierarchical
governance systems are more effective and legitimate.
At least three different models of global governance can be distin-
guished. Whereas protagonists of a hierarchical model argue that a world
state (or at least a hegemonic power) would be necessary to ensure the
effectiveness and legitimacy of global governance, advocates of a non-
hierarchical governance system suggest that horizontal self-coordination
would suffice to achieve effective and legitimate global governance just
as well as, or even better than, the hierarchical models (cf. Rittberger,
Mogler, and Zangl 1997; Rittberger 2000).
Authoritative coordination by a world state

The first model associates global governance with various conceptions
of a world state. Advocates of this model hold that mutual respect for
norms and rules cannot be expected under conditions of anarchy. As
long as states have to worry about their national integrity and as long as
they are afraid that others will break their promises, cooperation and
joint institution-building will be the exception in world politics. Following
this line of reasoning, the mutual fear of being attacked or exploited by

others can be effectively reduced only by installing a ‘‘Leviathan,’’ – i.e.
by creating a central authority with the capacity to make and enforce
norms and rules. Only if it is commonly realized that the benefits of rule-
breaking are outweighed by the inescapable negative sanctions that it
provokes, can states risk relying on public institutions that are designed
to manage collective-action problems or the problem of distributing the
gains from cooperation. With ‘‘Leviathan’’ on their side, no other state
will dare to exploit them.
However, as long as rational actors pursue their interests in an anar-
chical environment, they are trapped in a state of insecurity about their
survival and well-being. In such a situation every state has to take care of
itself and to base its strategies on worst-case scenarios. Therefore, no-
body expects others to abide by rules that are not sanctioned by a power
that keeps them all in awe. The basic idea underlying the model of the
world state is thus that rational actors (even when their interests are not
strictly opposed to one another) are unable to cooperate unless their
freedom of action is restrained by a central authority above them. At the
same time, the creation of a central authority would fundamentally alter
the structure of the international system. The anarchically organized
society of sovereign states would cease to exist and would give way to a
centralized, though multinational, polity where the monopoly of the le-
gitimate use of force is vested in a supranational institution possessing
the requisite powers of governing.
The emergence of a world state is sometimes conceived of via analogy
with the process of state-building in post-medieval Europe. According
to German sociologist Norbert Elias (1976), there were two crucial ele-
ments driving the civilizing process that involved the formation of the
territorial state: the first was the increased interdependence among social
actors as a result of extended exchange relations and the second was the
monopolization of the legitimate use of physical force. During this civi-
lizing process, humans learned to control their innate drives and subor-
dinated themselves to, or internalized, norms and rules of social conduct.
The monopolization of the means of physical force that has accompanied
the formation of modern states reflects, according to Elias, a general pro-
cess toward concentrating the control over the means of physical force in
world history. Consequently, one might expect a similar development to
occur at the international level. At the end of this process, the concept
and the function of the modern state would find its replication on a global
scale.
The world state does not need to have a centralized structure with a
unitary world government that governs by centralized ‘‘top-down’’ mech-
anisms. In contrast, one could also think of the world state organized ac-
cording to the principle of subsidiarity (cf. Höffe 1997). Large intermedi-

ary regional units of continental or subcontinental size could be the basis
of a world state (Höffe, chap. 7; cf. also Höffe 1999). A world republic
would be governed by a federal world government. The scope of a world
state’s tasks is limited to issues that cannot be dealt with by the individ-
ual state. The federal world republic thus does deny the state’s authority
(Höffe, chap. 7).
Although a world state may be most effective in ensuring compliance
with international norms and rules, it may not be feasible or desirable.
As to the feasibility of this model, one is left to wonder whether there is
any sign of a world people or citizenry in the making. In addition, noth-
ing indicates that the United Nations or another institution will be trans-
formed into a world federal government at any time in the near future
(Falk 1995: 6). As to the desirability of a world state, one has to contem-
plate the prospect of creating a world state requiring, by definition, the
establishment of a worldwide legal monopoly of physical force, which
could be accomplished only by restraining powerfully various forces of
local and national resistance against this project of global governance.
Hierarchical though not authoritative coordination: Governance under the

hegemonic umbrella
The second model of global governance also assumes that compliance
can be achieved only through a hierarchical sanctioning power. Interna-
tional governance under the hegemonic umbrella substitutes the world
state by a hegemon, i.e. a very powerful state that might be considered a
functional equivalent to a supranational authority (Lake 1993). Owing to
the overwhelming power resources that it controls, the hegemon has the
means to create international norms and rules and to secure compliance
with them. These norms and rules are tailored to the interests of their
maker; however, the particular national interests of the hegemon, to a
great extent, converge with the interests of the system (Waltz 1979: 189).
The subordination of other states to the hegemonic order, and their
compliance with the rules that constitute this order, is guaranteed by the
superior power of the hegemon. However, this power-based explanation
is just one side of the coin: non-hegemonic states can also have an inter-
est in fostering a hegemonic order, because it provides benefits, such as
economic gains and security, for them.
According to this model, the effectiveness of international institutions
is held hostage to the hegemon’s continuing ability to maintain order.
The model of hegemonic governance implies hierarchy, but the hegemon
is not equivalent to a world (or regional) government. The hegemonic
system is still composed of sovereign states. The hegemonic order most
likely could, and would, cover only a much smaller range of international
activities, leaving those (global or regional) cooperation problems un-

attended that are not vital from the point of view of the hegemon. An-
other difference between the hegemonic order and the world state model
is that a hegemonic order can, but need not, be global.
Governance under the hegemonic umbrella is not desirable because
hegemony is a temporary phenomenon (although one that, according to
some theories, recurs in a cyclical manner). This type of governance sys-
tem would be unstable, and the rise and fall of hegemons does not take
place without major conflicts (or, sometimes, even wars) in world poli-
tics. Therefore, the model plays a minor role in discussions on future
governance systems, even though it attracted much attention in the early
1990s (Group of Lisbon 1996).
Order as a result of horizontal self-coordination: Governance without

world government
The third model, governance without world government, does not as-
sume that the effectiveness of international institutions depends, in one
way or another, on hierarchical rule-making and rule-enforcement, and
therefore, on the concentration of the means of physical force on the
global level. As a consequence, the civilizing process, with its concomi-
tant growth of transactions and interdependencies, may continue without
some monopoly of physical force emerging on the world scene. Indeed,
increasing interdependence, especially mutual vulnerability, improves the
prospects for horizontal self-coordination by and among equals (Keohane
1993: 35).
In this model, the coordination of international activities is affected by
states agreeing, for their mutual benefit, upon norms and rules to guide
their future behaviour and to create mechanisms which make compliance
with these rules and norms possible (i.e. in each actor’s self-interest).
One of the premises of this model is that rational actors are assumed to
be aware of the fact that, under circumstances that are increasingly pre-
sent in today’s world, collective action will lead to outcomes which are
individually, let alone collectively, preferable to the results of unilateral
action. To break an agreement will necessarily entail a loss of reputation
as a reliable partner. A reputation of untrustworthiness would exclude a
government from future cooperative ventures. Thus, one could expect
that the higher the density of international transactions in an issue-area
and the longer the shadow of the future, the more likely is the establish-
ment and the maintenance of international institutions if collective-action
problems arise and persist.
This third model varies with regard to its state-centrism. Some scholars
argue that nation-states will remain the most important actors (Cox 1997:
xvi). According to this notion, governance without world government is
more or less the same as the model of international governance that was
predominant in the late twentieth century, in which states and inter-
governmental institutions attempt to regulate the behaviour of states and
other international actors. Others predict that states will disaggregate
over time into separate, functionally distinct parts, and that these parts
will network with their counterparts abroad, thus creating a dense web of
relations that constitute a transnational order (Slaughter 1997: 185). This
model is even more far-reaching than global governance as defined at the
beginning of this article, since it suggests that states remain important,
though not paramount, actors in evolving global governance.
Research shows that governance without governments is widespread
in industrially developed societies. The model proved to be quite helpful
in understanding the success and the failure of attempts at institution-
building in both military and political-economic relations (Axelrod and
Keohane 1985: 227; Young 1989: 375; Zürn 1992: 505–506). In addition,
governance without world government is entirely suitable to close the
governance gaps discussed in the previous section. As long as states (and
non-state actors) recognize that problems and conflicts can best be regu-
lated through cooperation, governance legitimacy in its output dimension
is likely to be secured. To be more precise, the jurisdictional gap is closed
as transsovereign problems are dealt with through international or trans-
national institutions. The incentive gap is narrowed because states are
interested in complying with international norms and rules (at least as
long as they consider that existing problems could best be dealt with at
the international level). The operational gap is narrowed inasmuch as
non-state actors play an important role in this governance model, there-
by bringing their knowledge and resources to bear on the international
and transnational policy-making processes. In addition, the participatory
gap is also narrowed since non-state actors, such as civil society groups,
have access to (or are even participants in) decision-making bodies. In
sum, this model is desirable as well as feasible.
From international to global governance
The three models depicted in the previous section are not currently im-
plemented, nor can any one of them serve as an outline for the future.
Current international governance and evolving global governance have
to be regarded, rather, as a patchwork of heterogeneous elements deriv-
ing from governance under the hegemomic umbrella (e.g. in security
communities, cf. Peou, chap. 3) as well as governance without world gov-
ernment (e.g. international regimes). As governance without world gov-
ernment appears to be the most desirable and feasible of possible gov-
ernance models, it is discussed in this section in more detail.
To gain a foothold in the future, global governance will have to over-

come the governance gaps (jurisdictional, operational, incentive, and
participatory gaps) that curtailed the effectiveness and legitimacy of
twentieth-century international governance systems. However, there is
no general consensus about how these gaps can and should be narrowed
or even closed. Several reform proposals, especially concerning the struc-
tures and functions of international organizations have been put for-
ward.10 The following section summarizes these reform proposals and
discusses the prospects of these reform endeavours. As the UN system
plays a central role in global governance, we especially focus on its con-
tributions to the closure of the governance gaps.
Closing the jurisdictional gap

The jurisdictional gap results from the discrepancy between a globalizing
world and separate national units of policy-making. Although it is gen-
erally acknowledged that international or transsovereign problems are
most effectively handled on the international level, national policy makers
in many countries still partly recoil from institutionalized international
cooperation (Kaul, Grunberg, and Stern 1999b: 467).
In general, there are three conceivable ways of closing the jurisdic-
tional gap (cf. Kaul, Grunberg, and Stern 1999b: 466–478).
1. To ensure an acceptable solution to pressing global problems, all
decision-making could be transferred to the international or global
level. This modus operandi would call for the establishment of a world
state or global governance under the hegemonic umbrella. As sug-
gested in the section on the three models of global governance, how-
ever, neither of these two governance models is feasible or desirable.
2. All decision-making could be transferred back to the state level.
There is no need for international regulation unless global ‘‘evils’’
cross state borders and collective action problems need to be solved.
In the twenty-first century, however, such a perspective seems to be
highly unrealistic as interactions and transactions between interna-
tional actors have never been more lively than today.
3. A so-called ‘‘jurisdictional loop’’ ‘‘that runs from the national to the
international and back to the national – by way of several intermediate
levels, regional and subregional’’ could be established (Kaul, Grun-
berg, and Stern 1999b: 466).
This kind of loop is sometimes equated with global governance (cf. e.g.
Commission on Global Governance 1995). Whereas in international gov-
ernance the most important loci of governance have been the states (and
intergovernmental institutions), in global governance other actors on dif-
ferent levels, such as local, subregional, and regional, influence public
policy-making as well. The actors’ relevance and influence varies with the
issue-area and topic. Global governance thus is a wide-ranging dynamic

process of complex interactive decision-making which is subject to con-
tinuous development according to the frequently changing circumstances
(ibid). In some cases, there might be ‘‘scope for principles such as sub-
sidiarity, in which decisions are taken as close as possible to the level at
which they can be effectively implemented’’ (ibid. 5; cf. Messner 1998;
Messner and Nuscheler 1997).11 In these networks of actors and insti-
tutions, however, individual states will remain salient participants since
they still have ‘‘the capacity to raise taxes [and] the ability to hurl force
at enemies’’ (Held et al. 1999: 495). Yet, one may also think of states as
‘‘sandwiches between global forces and local demands’’ (ibid.; cf. Mess-
ner 1998; Zürn 1998).
In these networks, the UN system can play a leading role. ‘‘With its
universality, it is the only forum where the governments of the world
come together on an equal footing and on a regular basis to try to re-
solve the world’s most pressing problems’’ (Commission on Global Gov-
ernance 1995: 6). To narrow the jurisdictional gap, the United Nations
may extend its cooperation with regional organizations; it would, there-
by, contribute to putting the principle of subsidiarity on a firm basis.
Strengthening the regional organizations’ role in the UN system, and
in world politics in general, is frequently proposed by scholars (cf. for the
issue area peace and security Peou, chap. 3) as well as diplomats. As early
as 1992, former UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali already
acknowledged this necessity in his ‘‘Agenda for Peace,’’ and the current
Secretary-General Kofi Annan has repeatedly confirmed Boutros-Ghali’s
view (e.g. Annan 2000).
However, a ‘‘regionalization’’ of the United Nations has not yet taken
place and is not very likely to occur in the near future. One reason is that
there are few regional organizations that can be considered ‘‘acceptable’’
regional counterparts of the UN system with regard to their effectiveness
and legitimacy (cf. Peou, chap. 3). Even if more effective and legitimate
regional organizations existed, establishing a division of labour between
them and the United Nations would be problematic.12
Closing the operational gap

In the last decades, a profound lack of necessary information, analysis,
and policy instruments has prevented policy makers and public institu-
tions from responding effectively to the daunting complexity of policy
issues (Reinicke et al. 2000: vii).
By working more closely together with non-state actors, policy makers
could narrow the operational gap. Global public-policy (GPP) networks,
or public–private partnerships (PPP) in general, may help to bridge the
operational gap (Reinicke and Deng 2000).13 These (trisectoral) net-
works connect individuals and institutions with common interests across

borders and different sectors of activity: these include local, national, and
regional governments, transnational corporations, and other business
actors, as well as their associations and civil society. This wide range of
members from different backgrounds enables the networks to collect a
wide range of information and expertise and thus to provide ‘‘a more
complete picture of particular policy issues and giving voice to previously
unheard groups’’ (Reinicke and Deng 2000: viii).
The United Nations has recognized the usefulness of global public
policy networks. In his millennium report, Secretary-General Kofi Annan
refers to centralized hierarchies of governance as anachronistic in the
world of the twenty-first century, ‘‘an outmoded remnant of the nine-
teenth century mindset’’ (Annan 2000: 13). He points out that effective
governance can be achieved only by the widening of participation possi-
bilities as well as of accountability; the United Nations ‘‘must be opened
up further for the participation of the many actors whose contributions
are essential to managing the path of globalization’’ (ibid). The United
Nations could serve as the platform for global public policy networks,
thus playing an intermediatory role between states, business, and civil
society. By facilitating the emergence of these networks and contributing
to their effective operation, the United Nations will increase its own ef-
fectiveness and credibility (Reinicke and Deng 2000: 78).
Since the 1990s, the United Nations and its specialized agencies have
been active in such networks (e.g. the World Commission on Dams, which
presented its guidelines for dam-building in November 2000, or the Roll-
Back Malaria Initiative, initiated by the World Health Organization).
These networks differ in the topics with which they are dealing. All GPP
networks, however, share the function of developing and disseminating
knowledge that is crucial for addressing transnational challenges. There-
by, they successfully contribute to the closure (or at least the narrowing)
of the operational gap (ibid. 93).
The most prominent example of a public–private partnership in the
making is the Global Compact between business and the United Nations.
In the past, Secretary-General Kofi Annan and his team have empha-
sized that they consider UN–corporate partnerships a promising new way
to gain political and financial support for the United Nations. In his dec-
laration of the Global Compact’s basic guidelines, he challenged business
leaders to help achieve the realization of nine UN core principles in the
areas of environment, labour, and human rights within their corporate
domains. These principles derive from the Universal Declaration of Hu-
man Rights, from the Rio Declaration of the UN Conference on Envir-
onment and Development, and from the Four Fundamental Principles
and Rights at Work adopted at the World Economic and Social Summit
in Copenhagen in 1997 and reaffirmed by the International Labour Or-

ganization in 1999.14 The Global Compact serves as a frame of reference
to stimulate best practices and to bring about convergence around uni-
versally acknowledged values (Kell and Ruggie 1999; Paul 2001). It was
formally launched at a meeting of almost fifty corporations, the Interna-
tional Chamber of Commerce, the World Business Council for Sustain-
able Development, and some NGOs (e.g. Amnesty International, WWF
International) at UN headquarters on 26 July 2000.
The major aim of the Global Compact is to strengthen the ‘‘social pil-
lars’’ upon which every market, including the global market, depends. It
seeks to facilitate the tension-free functioning of the global markets and
to overcome (or at least to mitigate) resistance to globalization. By en-
tering a partnership with business actors, the United Nations may addi-
tionally attain both informational and even financial support, and thus
narrow its operational gap.15
NGO activists have harshly attacked the Global Compact.16 They crit-
icize especially its lack of monitoring and sanctioning mechanisms. In
particular, they point out that there is no independent agency to collect
information about the signatory corporations’ compliance with the nine
UN principles. At present, apart from an annual report of their progress
and the problems in implementing the UN guidelines posted on the
Global Compact website, member corporations do not have any obliga-
tions. Corporations may simply pay lip service to the Global Compact’s
objectives (cf. Paul 2001). In spite of the Global Compact’s deficits as it is
currently set up, however, public–private partnerships in general are –
and will remain – a promising medium for contributing to the closure of
the UN system’s operational gap.
Closing the incentive gap

Global governance has been defined as the output of non-hierarchical
networks of international and transnational regimes. To work effectively,
global governance is strictly dependent on the performance of these in-
stitutions. An incentive gap (i.e. a malfunctioning of the operational
follow-up of international agreements) severely threatens this effective-
ness. A primary task among the efforts towards the establishment of
global governance is thus the closure of the incentive gap.
The closure of the incentive gap (i.e. the establishment of effective
compliance mechanisms) can be achieved by different strategies. As a first
step, institutions may enhance compliance in a cooperative, problem-
solving approach (Chayes and Chayes 1995: 3). This approach is based
on the assumption that non-compliance frequently does not derive from
a conscious decision to disregard norms and rules but from the member
states’ inability to abide by them, as well as from a certain incompre-
hensibility of the norms and rules themselves (ibid. 22). ‘‘Active man-
agement,’’ i.e. capacity building, dispute settlement, and the adaptation
and modification of norms set forth in treaties, may thus be a useful tool
for improving compliance (ibid. 197). The actors’ efforts towards com-
plete fulfilment of their obligations can be effectively supported and or-
ganized by institutions (ibid. 227).
The ozone regime, for instance, has implemented this managerial strat-
egy for enhancing compliance. If a member state fails to comply with the
Montreal Protocol’s rules, the Implementation Committee submits re-
commendations to the Meeting of the Parties to agree on suitable
measures. Hitherto, the Implementation Committee has mostly recom-
mended offers of assistance to non-complying states. The Russian Feder-
ation, for example, received additional funding through the Global
Environmental Facility in order to speed up the conversion of chloro-
fluorocarbon (CFC)-production facilities (Brühl 1999).
If the managerial model of compliance does not positively influence
the actors’ behaviour, a second measure of closing the incentive gap is
required – namely, authoritative dispute settlement. Compliance with the
agreed norms and rules can be enhanced by hauling deviant actors be-
fore a court of law or a body akin to it. In fact, more and more interna-
tional institutions tend to establish specific compliance mechanisms based
on judicial or quasi-judicial dispute-settlement procedures, thus taking an
important (though not universal) step towards the legalization of world
politics. Legalization is defined as ‘‘the degree to which rules are obliga-
tory, the precision of those rules, and the delegation of some functions
and interpretation, monitoring, and implementation to third parties’’
(Goldstein et al. 2000: 387). ‘‘Legalized institutions’’ adopt precise rules
and delegate authority to a neutral entity for implementation of the
agreed rules (ibid.). Typically, compliance in these legalized institutions
is higher than that in non-legalized institutions.
The WTO is an example of such a legalized institution. WTO members
have agreed that, if they believe that a state is violating the WTO’s rules,
the Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) will deal with these violations on
the basis of clearly defined rules with definite timetables for reaching a
decision. Once a decision has been handed down, the DSB also has the
power to authorize retaliation against a state that does not comply with
a ruling. Since 1995, the DSB has authorized five suspensions of trade
concessions.
The majority of international and transnational institutions have not
yet implemented an adequate compliance follow-up. In institutions with-
out any compliance follow-up, such as the climate-change regime, agree-
ments on at least one or another compliance mechanism will be neces-
sary to ensure an effective follow-up.
Closing the participatory gap
The participatory gap emerged from the primarily state-centric orienta-

tion of international governance. As state-centric international institu-
tions were still crucial to international governance systems at the end of
the twentieth century, non-state actors have been kept at arms’ length
from decision-making. Both NGOs and intergovernmental organizations
have criticized this fact, the latter having finally recognized the important
function of NGOs (both advocacy and service organizations) in formu-
lating and implementing international public policies (Rittberger and
Breitmeier 2000; cf. Tussie and Riggirozzi, chap. 5).
Numerous proposals to expand the role of non-state actors in global
governance have been made, including, for instance, the establishment of
a Second UN Assembly.17 Apart from certain differences in both elec-
toral mode and general mandate of a possible Second Assembly, all pro-
posals aim at strengthening the role of societal actors in the United Na-
tions. In contrast to the present diplomatic UN representation, members
of a Second Assembly would be accountable not to their governments
but to their popular constituencies. Furthermore, any national group of
deputies would represent their polity in its political, social, and cultural
diversity (Bienen, Rittberger, and Wagner 1998: 297). The distance be-
tween rulers and addressees of public policies would thus be minimized.
Because of its all-encompassing nature, a complete implementation of
this reform proposal is not very likely. Less far-reaching reforms of the
participation of civil society actors in international institutions, however,
already have been implemented and even more are to come. Most inter-
national organizations have initiated a process of opening-up toward
NGOs (Tussie and Riggirozzi, chap. 5); thereby, they are adapting their
internal structures and processes to meet the challenges to their legiti-
macy.
The relationship between the United Nations and NGOs has been
changeable, especially in the course of the cold war and its periods of
rising and decreasing tension. With the waning of the cold war, NGOs
have gained more influence in the UN system (Tussie and Rigirozzi,
chap. 5). Starting from the International Conference on Environment
and Development in Rio in 1992, NGOs have been more actively in-
volved in world conferences than ever before: they were granted ob-
server status and even active participation in most of the negotiations.
However, the UN system’s willingness to open up during the 1990s went
far beyond the area of world conferences. In 1996, the UN Economic and
Social Council (ECOSOC) adopted a resolution (Res. 31/1996) that re-
defines the criteria for NGOs to be accredited to the ECOSOC. This
resolution is the first to take into account the full diversity of NGOs at
different political levels. Thus, apart from (I)NGOs, regional, national,

and subregional NGOs can be accredited to the ECOSOC as well. More-
over, various specialized agencies and special programmes have granted
greater access to NGOs.
During the last decade, arrangements for consultations with NGOs
have been revised, improved, and extended across the UN system, al-
lowing NGOs decisively to influence international political debates. The
notion that the United Nations obviously profits from the involvement of
NGOs, especially in agenda setting and implementation, is confirmed by
Secretary-General Kofi Annan who observes that the advantages of the
increased NGO participation cannot be overestimated (Annan 1998a).
Although the revision of the UN system’s arrangements for NGO par-
ticipation will narrow the participatory gap, the efforts will not be suffi-
cient to close it. There are two reasons for this. First, the different bodies
of the United Nations still vary in their openness towards NGOs. Diana
Tussie and Maria Pia Riggirozzi suggest that the differences in interna-
tional organizations’ openness relate to the functional performance of
these institutions (chap. 5). They argue that what they term service or-
ganizations, e.g. the World Bank, are more open toward civil society
actors than those that they term forum organizations, e.g. the UN Gen-
eral Assembly. Second, for closing (or narrowing) the participatory gap,
balanced representation of the global civil society in international orga-
nizations is necessary; this calls for the incorporation of southern NGOs
in addition to northern NGOs. Ngaire Woods (2001: 97) suggests that
(particularly) transnational NGOs with their predominantly northern
membership distort the inequalities of power and influence in world
politics even further: these NGOs are only adding yet another channel
of influence to those people and governments who already are powerfully
represented.
Closing the participatory gap thus remains an important objective for
the UN system for a long time to come.
Overview of the content of this volume
We have suggested that international governance is confronted by three

different challenges: these are the revolution in information and commu-
nication technology, globalization, and the end of the cold war. As a con-
sequence, new problems have arisen and a variety of non-state actors
have entered the world political stage. For international governance sys-
tems, the attainment of governance goals has become increasingly diffi-
cult. Their failure results from four major gaps that have opened up – the
jurisdictional, operational, incentive, and participatory gaps. Owing to
these gaps, governance legitimacy in its output and input dimensions is

reduced. The limitations of the effectiveness and legitimacy of interna-
tional governance systems call for the establishment of more adequate
governance systems, i.e. global governance. Although several proposals
for narrowing (or even closing) the four governance gaps have been made,
none of them has yet been implemented, apart from minor adjustments
of the United Nations and its associated international organizations.
Whereas this chapter serves to outline the major trends of the trans-
formation of governance beyond the nation-state, the following chapters
analyse the shift from international to global governance in more detail.
The authors discuss the various aspects of this transformation, extra-
polate its trends, and provide suggestions about possible forms of global
governance.
In chapter 2, Michael Zürn investigates the political systems in the
national and postnational constellation. Political systems in the na-
tional constellation are characterized by a convergence of recognition,
resources, and the realization of governance goals in one political organ-
ization, the nation-state. In a globalizing, or denationalizing, world this
convergence of the three dimensions of a political system in one political
organization dissolves and a new multilevel system of governance takes
shape. Governance in the postnational constellation will approximate
complex arrangements between governing institutions ‘‘with and without
national governments.’’ In the postnational constellation the attainment
of the governance goals of security and the rule of law will be at least as
likely as in the national constellation. However, the governance goals of
providing effective participation channels and social welfare will be much
more difficult to attain.
In chapter 3, Sorpong Peou claims that international peace and stabil-
ity cannot be attained by the UN system alone. Regional security com-
munities could help the United Nations to promote peace and stability.
‘‘Stable’’ security communities are defined as those whose members de-
velop dependable mutual expectations of peaceful change. Today, varia-
tions in regional stability and peace can be observed: North America and
Western Europe have become the most stable regions, whereas non-
Western regions have proved to be far less effective in maintaining stable
peace than their Western counterparts. The variation in regional stability
and peace follows from the fact that regions and their member states do
not meet equally the conditions that are considered essential for building
security communities. These conditions encompass democratic perfor-
mance of the member states, the presence of a democratic leader in the
security community which possesses adequate material capabilities for
effective democratic intervention, experience of the member states in
managing conflicts, and membership size of the security community.
In chapter 4, Richard Higgott discusses the relationship between glob-

alization and governance. In the 1980s and early 1990s the Washington
Consensus (WC), with its buzzwords ‘‘liberalization,’’ ‘‘deregulation,’’
and ‘‘privatization,’’ has governed international economic thinking and
practice. As a result, financial markets have expanded rapidly. The
financial crises of 1997 have made policy makers aware of the need to
rethink the relationship between the market and the state. As a result
of rigorous debates about the policy successes and failures of the WC,
a Post-Washington Consensus (PWC) is emerging and has added another
set of buzzwords – such as ‘‘civil society,’’ ‘‘social capital,’’ ‘‘capacity
building,’’ or ‘‘transparency,’’ to the WC. In short, the PWC is an at-
tempt to embed and humanize globalization institutionally. Therefore,
the major financial and economic international organizations and re-
gimes will be a potentially greater source of the promotion of social jus-
tice than they have been in the past.
In chapter 5, Diana Tussie and Maria Pia Riggirozzi examine the rela-
tionship of different IGOs and (I)NGOs. The former are found to be in-
creasingly open toward civil society actors. The authors suggest that the
variation in openness depends on an IGO being more like a forum or a
service organization. This distinction relates to the way in which IGOs
perform their function. Service organizations, exemplified by the inter-
national financial institutions, provide specific in-country services and
disburse funds to ‘‘clients.’’ These service organizations were first in
broadening their collaboration with NGOs. Forum organizations are es-
tablished to provide a venue or framework for negotiations and collective
decision-making, ranging from consultations to binding commitments.
These organizations, such as the UN General Assembly or the WTO, are
still less open towards NGOs. Governments of member states are the
main actors, leaving civil society organizations with a secondary role in
the process of negotiations and decision-making.
In chapter 6, Otfried Höffe develops the core ideas of a subsidiary and
federal world republic, arguing that such a world republic is the adequate
response to the challenges of globalization. The world republic needs to
rely on the constitutive principle of federalism, since ‘‘only a federalist
unity can be a morally dictated and legitimate world republic.’’ In this
scheme, the individual states remain responsible for enforcing the law.
The territorial states have the rank of first-order states, while the world
republic is no more than a second-order or (where there are intermedi-
ary polities at the continental or subcontinental level) even a third-order
state. Citizenship in the world republic is therefore understood as com-
plementary citizenship. Global civil rights do not take the place of na-
tional civil rights, but the former supplement the latter.
In chapter 7, Yash Tandon examines to what degree existing interna-
tional governance conforms to criteria of social justice. This provocative

chapter consists of three parts. First, Tandon observes that the contem-
porary world is ‘‘pathological’’: it is ruled by profits, as, for instance,
‘‘health is subordinated to the demands of profit’’ or the protection of
plants takes precedence over the protection of human lives. Second, the
author presents and discusses three different conceptions of justice: ‘‘jus-
tice as fairness’’ (Rawls), ‘‘justice as charity,’’ and ‘‘justice as welfare.’’
Finally, he asks which of the wide variety of actors on the world political
stage are able and willing to pursue social justice. Since neither northern
nor southern states nor TNCs are purveyors of justice, only civil society
organizations can be relied upon to be agents of the Rawlsian concept of
‘‘justice as fairness.’’
Notes
1. However, it is important to note that, to a certain extent, additional information at a
certain time or in a certain context may be harmful, and at another time and place this
same increment of information may have a neutral or even beneficial effect (Hurley and
Mayer-Schönberger 2000).
2. Since the main purpose of this section is to discuss the challenges posed by globalization
to international governance, and not the analysis of globalization itself, we refer only to
the two extreme views on globalization. For a more differentiated view see Held et al.
(1999a: 2–16).
3. For data and analysis cf. Albert et al. (1999).
4. Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, Jr (2000a: 105) distinguish globalization and
interdependence. According to these authors, globalization, first, refers to networks of
connections rather than single linkages and, second, includes multicontinental distances,
not simply regional networks. (For their concept and analysis on interdependence see
Keohane and Nye 1977, 1987.)
5. These scholars prefer the term ‘‘denationalization’’ to ‘‘globalization,’’ as the latter is
mostly understood as a process resulting in a status of globality. Because most trans-
boundary interactions take place within the OECD world, and not on a global level,
‘‘globalization’’ appears to be a misnomer. ‘‘Denationalization,’’ in contrast, refers only
to the extension of societal transactions beyond the national level, no matter what the
actual scope of the transactions (see Zürn, chap. 4; Zürn 1998; Beisheim et al. 1999).
6. A value of 0 signifies perfect equality; a value of 1, perfect inequality. The world Gini
coefficient deteriorated slightly from 0.63 in 1988 to 0.66 in 1993. In the Russian Feder-
ation, the Gini coefficient rose markedly from 0.24 to 0.48 between 1987–1988 and
1993–1995 (UNDP 1999: 6).
7. However, in the second half of the 1990s the UN started to wane in global influence.
The number of Blue Helmets decreased to 27,000 in 2000 after it had peaked in 1993,
when 80,000 peace-keepers were deployed (Peou, chap. 3).
8. Kalevi J. Holsti (1996: 119) defines ‘‘failed states’’ as follows: ‘‘Leaders become in-
creasingly isolated and inhabit make-believe worlds concocted by their cronies and
dwindling sycophants. Government institutions no longer function except perhaps in the
capital city. The tasks of governance, to the extent that they are performed at all, de-
volve to warlords, clan chiefs, who are well armed. The state retains the fig leaf of sov-
ereignty for external purposes, but domestic life is organized around local politics. The
national army . . . disintegrates into local racketeering, or hires itself out to local rulers.’’
9. Input legitimacy is more difficult to achieve in international governance than in gover-
nance by national governments, because neither an international public nor a transna-
tional collective identity has yet come into existence (cf. Brock 1998; Wolf 2000: 213–
242; Zürn 2000: 192).
10. In his Presidential Address to the American Political Science Association, Robert Keo-
hane (2001: 3), for instance, has proposed that each political institution in global gover-
nance needs to meet the three criteria of accountability, participation, and persuasion.
We discuss these criteria under the headings of closing the jurisdictional gap (account-
ability), the participation gap (participation and accountability), and the incentive gap
(persuasion).
11. At first glance, this idea looks very promising but its further analysis shows that it re-
mains unclear who is to decide on the appropriate level of public policy-making in dis-
tinct areas (cf. Brand et al. 2000, also Mürle 1998). For a different point of view see
Höffe (1997).
12. In addition, UN member states apparently do not favour implementing far-reaching re-
forms in general. This reluctant attitude is indicated by their recurrent inability to agree
on less important reform proposals. Thus, the closure of all governance gaps will be
difficult to achieve. For different UN reform proposals cf. Alger 1998; Hüfner and
Martens 2000. Whereas most of the far-reaching reform proposals have not been im-
plemented, Kofi Annan has implemented a ‘‘Quiet Revolution’’ (Annan 1998a) by re-
forming the UN Secretariat.
13. Global public policy (GPP) networks are one set of arrangements of public–private
partnerships. GPP networks are institutional innovations as not only do they combine
the ‘‘voluntary energy and legitimacy of the civil society sector with the financial muscle
and interest of business and the enforcement and rule-making power and coordination
and capacity-building skills of states and international organization,’’ but also they
create new knowledge as consensus emerges over often contentious issues. They thus
ensure constant learning of all participants (Reinicke and Deng 2000: 29–30).
14. The Secretary-General asked the business community to support and respect the fol-
lowing:
1. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) Principle 1 (protection of inter-
national human rights within their sphere of influence) and Principle 2 (make sure
their own corporations are not complicit in human rights abuses).
2. The Declaration of the International Labour Organization on fundamental principles
and rights at work Principle 3 (guarantee freedom of association and the effective
recognition of the right to collective bargaining), Principle 4 (support the elimination
of all forms of forced and compulsory labour), Principle 5 (assist the effective aboli-
tion of child labour), and Principle 6 (support the elimination of discrimination in re-
spect of employment and occupation).
3. The Rio Declaration of the UN Conference in Environment and Development
(1992) Principle 7 (support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges),
Principle 8 (undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility),
and Principle 9 (encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally
friendly technologies).
15. Cf. the modalities of the guidelines ‘‘Cooperation between the United Nations and
Business Community’’ issued by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, 17 July
2000.
16. ‘‘Think-tank NGOs’’ such as the Transnational Resource and Action Center have pub-
lished various short articles on this topic, cf. Paul (2001). Other NGOs have written a
‘‘coalition letter’’ to Kofi Annan [www.corpwatch.org/trac/globalization/blast1tr.html]

(23.11.2000).
17. For an overview of these reform proposals see Bienen, Rittberger, and Wagner (1998).
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1

From international to global

The central challenge we face today is to ensure that globalization becomes a

Introduction: Why discuss global governance?

Secretary-General Koﬁ Annan identiﬁes in his millennium report to

comprising (1) states and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), (2)

as possible, to recommend what governance on a global scale could (or,

International governance at the end of the twentieth century

The term governance refers to purposive systems of rules or normative

the European Commission enjoys the right of initiative in most areas

Three challenges to international governance

The technological revolution

Over the last twenty years, a revolution in information and communica-

The technological revolution – and, with it, the heightened availabil-

information and develop integrated political strategies. In particular,

it appears equally true that the recent technological achievements may

international negotiations but also has even outstripped governments’

ciﬁc national interests, if the uses of the Internet could be conﬁned to

Globalization has become a ‘‘fashionable concept’’ (Hirst and Thompson

the road only (ibid.: 7). In comparison, today’s globalization is ‘‘thick,’’

ing, maintaining, and usefully extending the ‘‘soft infrastructure’’ (Zacher

tems have not been able to redistribute wealth or to provide compensa-

The end of the cold war

(Track One diplomacy), they may help to improve relationships between

Limits of international governance systems

The (non-)attainment of governance goals at the end of the

In the previous sections, three different challenges (technological revolu-

territorial actors, such as international (governmental and non-

Table 1.1 Limits of international governance systems

Output legitimacy Input legitimacy

systems, the causes for the failure of international governance systems to

Four governance gaps undermine the governance systems’

2. An operational gap: Policy makers and public institutions lack the

ising avenues open to them for making themselves heard by the UN

Towards global governance

Three models of global governance

Authoritative coordination by a world state

this line of reasoning, the mutual fear of being attacked or exploited by

cording to the principle of subsidiarity (cf. Höffe 1997). Large intermedi-

Hierarchical though not authoritative coordination: Governance under the

activities, leaving those (global or regional) cooperation problems un-

Order as a result of horizontal self-coordination: Governance without

From international to global governance

To gain a foothold in the future, global governance will have to over-

Closing the jurisdictional gap

issue-area and topic. Global governance thus is a wide-ranging dynamic

Closing the operational gap

works connect individuals and institutions with common interests across

in Copenhagen in 1997 and reafﬁrmed by the International Labour Or-

Closing the incentive gap

Closing the participatory gap

The participatory gap emerged from the primarily state-centric orienta-

different political levels. Thus, apart from (I)NGOs, regional, national,

Overview of the content of this volume

We have suggested that international governance is confronted by three

these gaps, governance legitimacy in its output and input dimensions is

In chapter 4, Richard Higgott discusses the relationship between glob-

tional governance conforms to criteria of social justice. This provocative

‘‘coalition letter’’ to Koﬁ Annan [www.corpwatch.org/trac/globalization/blast1tr.html]

ternational Non-Governmental Organizations since 1875. Stanford, CA: Stan-

Höffe, Otfried. 1999. Demokratie im Zeitalter der Globalisierung. München: C.H.

lateral Cooperation and Problems of Democracy.’’ Paper Prepared for the

Reinicke, Wolfgang H. 1998. Global Public Policy: Governing Without Govern-